Quote Originally Posted by Sam Buchanan View Post
The Operating Limitations for an aircraft with an Experimental Airworthiness Certificate state that it does not need to comply with FAR 91.205 unless it will be operated at night or in IMC. Daylight VFR operations do not require any instrumentation.
I go back and forth on this one. Some days, I agree that 91.205 doesn't apply for EAB aircraft operated day VFR only since the OL's only discuss complying for night/IFR, and some days, I don't. While there is an explicit statement saying that one must conform to 91.205 in order to fly night/IFR in the Operating Limitations, there's no explicit exemption for day VFR, and in any case, EAB aircraft are subject to part 91. So it's not obvious to me that 91.205 doesn't apply to day VFR EAB aircraft by default, and they just wanted to be completely explicit about equipping for night/IFR.

Not clear, without a ruling from the legal department. I know that some aircraft have been certificated as EAB without a full 91.205 panel, even for day VFR, but that only means that someone convinced the examiner/DAR, or that the examiner/DAR's view of the rules is unclear as mine.

Quote Originally Posted by Sam Buchanan View Post
Joe correctly stated that there are no minimum flight safety standards that can be enforced per FARs.
So I'll disagree with those that believe that there are no minimum standards for EAB aircraft, at least per the documentation. If we take a look at Order 8130.2J, Chapter 15, we can see that it clearly spends most of its time discussing paperwork and the legality of kits. However, section 15-4(c)(5) says:

"(5) Condition for Safe Operation. Inspect the aircraft to verify it is in a condition for safe operation. The sample checklist for a condition inspection in appendix 1 to FAA AC 90-89,
Amateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Testing Handbook, may be used for determining if the aircraft is in a condition for safe operation"

To me, this is explicit that the the FAA examiner or the DAR is SUPPOSED to be doing the equivalent of a CI on the plane and should not issue an AC unless they believe that the aircraft "is in a condition for safe operation".

Now, in reality, of course, the chance that the FAA examiner or DAR is qualified to determine such a thing for some arbitrary aircraft is relatively low and everyone is correct that it's unlikely that they'd ever decline to issue the AC except for extremely egregious circumstances - I've done over 130 CI's and Pre-Buy exams in the past 6 years and have seen airplanes that shouldn't have been allowed to be hung from the ceiling of a museum as a representation of what an airplane should look like, much less ever had an AC issued, so I can't even imagine what it would take for an examiner or DAR to decline to issue an AC based on the above paragraph.

But the order, which is titled "Airworthiness Certification of Aircraft" and defines what the examiner/DAR should be doing in order to issue an AC, seems clear that at least a small part of their job is to determine "if the aircraft is in a condition for safe operation", and this does meet the requirement of "minimum flight safety standards", however vague those might be (and they are).